Nigel P A 'just married' couple are driving through Las Vegas accompanied by a musical soundtrack that sounds as if it has been lifted straight from Hawaii Five-O. Everything is going well until the groom has his head blown away by a passing driver.A similar shock happens later on. FBI Agent Naughton has all the hallmarks of a sharp-dressed hero. Before long, he is smeared along a sun-kissed highway by the same manic driver.The storyline involves disfigured criminal Leonard Karlsson (Jeremy Fitzgerald), convicted of child molestation. He breaks out in a clumsily shot pre-credits sequence and starts a killing spree against the 12 jurors who convicted him. To hide his deformity, he takes to wearing the faces of his victims. Apart from this, we are never invited to learn much about Karlsson; he immediately becomes the standard slasher/killer whose victims are dispatched in a less than bloody way.The characters are sketchily written. None of them are particularly obnoxious (a common complaint) but neither are they particularly interesting or easy to care about. Deputy Kent, who emerges as the unlikely hero, is probably the most likable of them all – before he too is dispatched, leaving two young girls Vicki (Mercedes McNab) and Claire (Emily Hardy) to sort things out.As a whole, 'XII' is competent, perfunctory and contains some gory moments, particularly towards the end. If we knew a little more about the main villain, he would have been more effective – as it is, he is simply another 'bogeyman.' My favourite aspect of this is the element of surprise; many of the deaths were truly shocking because the characters seemed the least likely to be despatched.

Paul Andrews XII is set in a small American town on the eve of Christmas, FBI agent Naughton (Steven Brand) is on the trail of a killer who likes to rip the faces off his victims, two of his known victims come from this small town & agent Naughton talks to deputy Kent (Nick Searcy) about the case. Kent says he will ask around, while talking to pretty young waitress Claire (Emily Hardy) she mentions that the two victims served together on jury duty. Kent feels this is important information as the juror's verdict sent child molester Leonard Karlsson (Jeremy Fitzgerald) to prison where he was badly disfigured, even more so since Karlsson had been recently released. Claire also manages to piece the clues together & since she also served on that jury assumes that her life is in danger as well as several of her friends, as the twelve juror's either turn up dead or go missing it seems that Karlsson has returned to have his revenge against those who sent him down...Written & directed by Michael A. Nickles this horror teen slasher is pretty typical of the genre & while it's not the worst example out there I wouldn't exactly call it good, a passable time waster for what it is I suppose but nothing more. The script feels like it's an assembled patchwork of teen slasher ideas, themes & images with the holiday event setting of Christmas, the badly disfigured killer like Freddy, the human skin collecting like Leatherface, the plastic mask like Jason & the two main female victims one of whom is all slutty & uncaring while the other is pure virgin material as well as the dumb cops & secondary character's merely there to be killed off. XII is strictly routine & by the numbers, there's nothing of any great surprise, the revenge driven motives for the killer are nothing new (A child molester? Where have I heard that before?) & his filthy basement hideout is standard teen slasher issue. Lasting under 80 minutes at least XII is fairly brisk, despite an attention grabbing opening sequence the script settles down & introduces the character's who slowly release that something nasty is going on before the final obligatory chase & stand-off between the surviving girl & the masked killer. None of it is very original but it's reasonably well staged, the short running time helps & there are a couple of nice moments but otherwise XII is for teen slasher fanatics only.While disfigured & masked killer looks quite good & imposing at times he has virtually no back-story, it's not even made clear if he was innocent of the charges & wants revenge for that reason or whether he's just an evil git. There's a few decent gore scenes including a cool opening in which a guy has his head literally blown off, unfortunately this is the films gore highlight & because it comes so early nothing else lives up to it. There's a also a throat slashing, someone has his tongue cut out, someone's face is cut off & removed & there's some blood splatter. Fairly basic in set-up & execution XII doesn't rewrite any slasher rules & for the most part it's pretty predictable & straight forward.Probably shot on a low budget the production values are decent enough, it's looks nice enough & the special effects are alright but it's not a film that live long in the memory. The acting is OK, the two young female leads look nice enough & aren't too annoying when they scream.XII, or Twelve for those who don't know their Roman numerals, is a fairly average teen slasher. It has a decent villain & one or two good gore scenes but overall I wouldn't say it's anything other than an indifferent way to pass 80 minutes. It could have been better but it also could have been worse.

tequila101 I saw this film in the video shop yesterday and decided to give it a try. When I saw what ratings this film got here, I was sort of put off but at the same, I had high hopes that this might succeed in me giving it at least a 6.That's not the case in this film and I tell you why in pointers.First off like the film Seed, I don't know about you guys but I found Seed to be some sort of Michael Myers rip-off. Here I have the same minor problem. At first the Leonard Karl Character is quite awesome but as we see what goes behind doors, in his house, he is more portrayed as a Leatherface character. I don't know if that's what you guys think but that's what I think. Yes, we get a cool looking killer but it treaded on when a poor writing director tries to use someone else's character to rip theirs off. The director ruined his killer which sucks (in that sense). Overally I found the Killer enjoyable to watch in action. One thing with Karl I found the director pulled off well was the amount of screen time Karl was on for. He was on at the right moments and he was paced on the screen well, not revealing too much till the end.From start to finish, we get crappy un-developed characters that we really don't care about, and we just want them to die or live either way. I had high hopes that eventually we would come to like these characters. oh well.the music is OK.The acting is bad. Not much else to say about how bad it is.The kills are average at best. They were timed right (being honest). I never had a problem with them.The story also could have been more awesome and conclusive if we didn't have such poor actors, scenes and scares. There was nothing about this film that was scary and as for the script, it feels as if it's poorly written and when every scene comes around the corner, it just goes no where.A really poor film. 4.9/10

tylerrhendrickson This is a typical example of a young film company trying to prosper by making films in every genre. This movie has no explanation as to why the killer does what he does, Horrible direction, and sub par acting. Those responsible including Tenny Stedd should know that persons being brought into prison are escorted by bus and not by patrol car. The make up and special effects are beneath even the Sci Fi channel. The only reason to watch the piece of trash is either extreme boredom.... actually thats the only reason I can think of. This is a classic example of idiots trying to make a buck in a profitable genre, except they are idiots and couldn't pull a better story out of their butt holes. In fact, thats probably where they found this film.